Episode 934: Red ink, blue conservatives

Zain 0:02

This is a Strategist episode 934. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, what is going on? It is Sunday. We're recording another podcast episode. Stephen Carter, you're doing, you're gesticulating. I don't know how. Framing

Zain 0:20

Okay, you're framing the

Carter 0:21

the issue. Oh, God.

Carter 0:22

I decided that we're going to start doing mimes as a stand-alone, as a thing to accompany our podcast. podcast okay

Zain 0:29

cory are you in you guys know i'm not in okay you know i'm not in yeah well you guys are both wearing what look like matching plaid shirts i don't know where you guys are shopping but we go to the middle

Corey 0:40

middle-aged white guy store yeah

Zain 0:42

yeah i don't get it do

Zain 0:43

do you go to the middle-aged white guy store and then after you're done shopping eat at the middle-aged white guy restaurant known as dairy queen or is that is that what you generally generally

Corey 0:53

do let me tell tell you something when we did that episode that led up last episode the joke was what a small issue nobody's talking about it how awesome will it be to talk about local politics through the frame of an issue that doesn't really matter all that much and the entire fucking city has talked about nothing but this dairy queen for the past three days which

Corey 1:14

which is not because of us for the record it's just it is just seeped into the air it has become a whole thing

Zain 1:21

let's become a part Well, I mean, we're in a municipal election, so it's become a thing. Carter, you were going to jump in?

Carter 1:26

Well, I mean, it's a whole thing exactly like we predicted it might unfold, right? Like, this is exactly what happened. We talked about the narrative being set. We talked about how to frame the story. Are

Zain 1:38

Are you actually taking a victory lap? Is that what's going on here? Listen, our

Carter 1:43

ball has never been more clear. Our crystal ball has never been more clear. or people followed it exactly the way we expected them to with exactly the predicted results. I

Corey 1:54

I will give you this. Yeah.

Corey 1:55

Stephen, I will give you this. The fact that there was even three segments in a row on QR77 the next day, exactly

Corey 2:03

as you predicted, was a little spooky. It was a little spooky. But, you know, fundamentally it is true. I mean, this issue played out in a way that was kind of, you

Corey 2:11

you know, you don't know these things are going to get the volume, but you know that the proponents are trying to get that level of volume. And if they did, you know, that is exactly how they were going to do it. And

Corey 2:21

And that was kind of interesting to see. It was interesting to see how everybody and their dog decided to jump in and have an opinion about this. It was interesting to see people almost feeling

Corey 2:32

feeling their way to talking points collectively, like, what are we saying? Let's change it. Okay, this is working. This isn't working. Okay, let's latch on to this. Let's call into question that statement. Let's accept that statement unreservedly. You know, it was fascinating. It

Corey 2:46

It was fascinating to watch. But, you know, I mean, fundamentally, I think that it

Corey 2:53

it wasn't very important.

Zain 2:58

Wait, fascinating to watch, but fundamentally not very important is pretty much the sub-headline of our podcast. So it fits very nicely into that frame. I thought it'd be a great segue for us to talk about fast food joints and their issues. I've actually pulled up this extremely long article on McDonald's and their McFamily feud, as they call it. I mean, if you guys are game, we can dedicate an entire episode to that right now. What do you say, Carter?

Carter 3:23

Oh, I'm totally not in. I'm not touching any more fast food issues from

Carter 3:28

from the get-go. I mean, this is too much now.

Zain 3:31

There we go. Let's move it on to our first segment. Our first segment, the budget victory lap. Guys, we're not done with victory laps. You've just taken one. But worry not, because I know Corey Hogan wants to take one on our federal budget. But let's set some context, of course. This past week, it seems like eons ago, the federal budget was tabled. The biggest budget since the Second World War. The centerpiece of it, national child care, of course. We'll talk about that in some detail. We also have this greening of the economy, the green transition, as it's been called by the Trudeau government in the past. We also have $100 billion of new spending, no real pathway to balance, and a deficit that sits at a grand total of just north of $350 billion. That is correct. You heard that right, $350 billion. Stephen Carter, I'm going to start with you first, like I always do on these big meaty topics, which is where do you want to take us? Where do you want to go? And what was your top line feeling? I want to say thoughts, but feeling when you heard this come out on, I don't even know, was it Monday? Last Monday.

Carter 4:36

So I think that there were two competing narratives that were trying to come out of the budget deliberations. One competing narrative was this is the end of the country. We are outspending ourselves into oblivion, and it is all over. And that narrative was, of course, championed by O'Toole, and that was supposed to be his narrative coming out of it. And the other was kind of a narrative of what do I get? And what do I get was probably headlined by the

Carter 5:02

the child care discussions, which I think is a significant issue. Maybe we've been here before. Maybe we've had talk about child care in the past, but we haven't actually seen it implemented. implemented so now

Carter 5:16

now is the chance to get it implemented this is the conversation that is being had uh by many people those two diet dialogues were kind of at each at each other's at

Carter 5:26

at odds with one another and so i wanted

Carter 5:29

wanted to watch and i've been watching for the last week to see which one seems to have won and and from my view the one that won is the stuff we're going to get and and what's interesting is we didn't even talk about the stuff that we need uh all this all of of the recovery from the pandemic stuff is included in that $400 billion spent or protected projected deficit. I've rounded up you've kept it you've rounded down. What's 50? What's $50 billion between friends? But clearly nothing, nothing. Clearly nothing.

Carter 6:03

So, so I think that overall, you know, if you're talking about narratives, the narrative that seems to have won the day uh is the narrative of what we get not what it's going to cost us so uh that's my takeaway that's the way that i've boiled it down into into uh simplicity for my understanding of the of the budget um but

Carter 6:23

but but i think that that is is also reflecting how can how canadians are walking away from the budget presentation and the lead up potentially to an election

Zain 6:34

carter give me cory i'm coming to you in a second carter give me your take on the The spectrum of strictly recovery budget all the way to let's remake Canada in the legacy of Justin Trudeau's, you know, grand new deal reset, whatever you want to call it, budget. Where does this fit? Is it closer to the latter? Closer to the former? Is it its own thing? What do you think?

Carter 6:54

Well, I think this is an absolute class in political opportunism. You only get the chance to do these, you know, remaking Canadian society initiatives, remaking Alberta society, remaking British Columbia, Ontario, doesn't matter. You only get to take those chances when you are in the midst of something horrible. So when, for example, when you're in the midst of an economic downturn in Alberta, based on the elimination of oil and gas, this is the time when you get to do something. So you have to do something. If you wanted to remake something, you do it now. Now, you already have an enormous deficit. There's nothing you're going to be able to do about it. What's spending an extra, I can't remember the specific amount, was it $400 billion over $300 billion over how many years? $30 billion? I mean, really, the numbers all start to get very meaningless

Carter 7:45

meaningless because it pales in comparison to the cost of the pandemic. So because you have the pandemic totally distorting the numbers, totally throwing the numbers out the window, you now have the opportunity to do something very, very meaningful. And that meaningfulness is going to be felt, but it's not going to be measured in the same fashion.

Zain 8:07

Over the seven minutes that Carter has filled time here, I've seen Corey smirk. I've seen him smile. I've seen him shake his head. I've seen him nod his head. Corey, triangulate all those feelings into your thoughts for what... That

Carter 8:19

That is every time I speak, by the way. Every time. Yeah,

Zain 8:22

Yeah, I feel like Corey is the proxy of the of the listener at home. Corey, initial thoughts. We'll jump into questions there after.

Corey 8:29

My initial thought was that the budget was shockingly good. So we talked about, for example, the risk being on the economic side. But when you're able to provide a deficit that is reduced from your your fall projections by so much, even that kind of made this is a big deficit. But Aaron O'Toole's accusations that this is running up the red ink and is jeopardizing, you know, Canadian future really rang a little bit hollow because we had all kind of had our expectations set by that fall update. So Carter says it's a master class in political opportunism. I also think it's a master class in political framing, because in what other world do you get to spend so much money, go so much into debt and have people say, oh, pretty good, pretty good job, guys. Great work. I mean, this is an interesting budget. It's like Christmas in more ways than one. Not only do they get to give out an awful lot of things, but it's a green and red budget. You've got this rethinking of the economy around environmental lines, and you've got enough

Corey 9:28

enough red ink, I think, to drown an elephant. But we're all feeling okay with it, to Carter's point. The messaging that has come out has really been more about the childcare. It's been a remaking of the economy, all of those environmental sweeteners that were within it. And that's, you

Corey 9:44

you know, bravo, I guess. My reaction was this budget is almost too good not to be an election budget.

Corey 9:52

You got to do this. I can absolutely see why they thought it would be a good opportunity to lead into an election on it. Now, you talked about victory laps. I think it is worth noting I was very wrong about a couple of things. It did not have wedges. We don't

Zain 10:04

on this show. I don't know. What are you talking

Corey 10:06

talking about? It's okay. It's okay. You'll see where I'm going here. This few episode has softened you a bit. Don't you worry about it.

Corey 10:11

Don't you worry about it.

Corey 10:14

So it did not have a lot of wedges. It did not talk about the UBI at all. There was no suggestion of a pilot or anything like that. But I do think it's important to note that as wrong as I was, Stephen Carter was more wrong. because he said it would be the biggest day in Canadian history, and it was driven off the front pages by soft-serve ice cream. So, you

Corey 10:35

you know, unfortunately, I think it's a budget that will not actually be that memorable if it's not the trigger to an election.

Zain 10:42

And there's many things to talk about. So I got both of your takes on the table. I want to talk about the framing by the Liberals. I want to talk about the response by O'Toole. You guys both mentioned it in abstractions, but I want to talk about his framing on a response. sponsor, at least the headline that it's been circulating on the O'Toole framing. But I want to talk to you guys about the centerpiece first. And let's talk about child care. So the number that was floating around was at $2 billion prior to being like, they're going to invest $2 billion in child care. And a lot of us were head scratching, like, how the heck does that work? Turns out it's $30. So we're off all of our speculators and leaks are off by a factor of, I don't know, fucking 10, plus maybe 11, maybe 12. Who knows, Corey? Who knows math? is it 15 i think it's 15 uh we were off by a factor of 15 um but at the same time cory is that the right centerpiece here because there's also this recovery element which surprisingly and weirdly kind of gets lost like that we're extending the sues we're extending you know these supports that were all

Zain 11:44

that sort of stuff it almost gets lost for the centerpiece on childcare, a bit on housing, you know, some other initiatives. But was that the right framing? It seems like from your perspective, yes, but tell me why.

Corey 11:59

I think it was the right framing, because it was both something that the Sue stuff is not new, right? You're extending things. It's also a reminder of the economic malaise that we're in. And I'm sure the government would much more like to talk about what's coming and it's positive rather than here's how we're going to help mop up still the economic turmoil that has been wrought by COVID-19, which, by the way, is still going on, lest anybody forget.

Corey 12:24

The child care program, however, is it's not just, I think, going to be really popular and the fact that you can sell it as social infrastructure, the fact that you can sell it as part of an economic reimagining of this nation. But the politics almost province by province become fascinating. And it creates all sorts of different dynamics and i think not just on net but but very much in almost all cases if not all cases they favor the liberal government they put the conservatives into awkward positions so let's just use this as an example uh you have jason kenney now here in alberta saying well just give me the check i don't want your child care program i want the money and i want alberta to be able to run its own child care program from a point of view rooted in constitutionalism, not a crazy notion. Like, in what universe is the federal government responsible for childcare? That is so far outside of their lane.

Corey 13:18

However, I think most Canadians are a little less worried about the watertight compartments of the Constitution, and they're more thinking, childcare sounds great. And now what does Aaron O'Toole do? His conservative supporters, if they're parroting the line of the right-wing premier in Alberta, they

Corey 13:35

they might be saying, well, well, would you be willing to do this? Do you want to kill this? It creates weird pressures on Aaron O'Toole, and it makes Aaron O'Toole have to stand up in weird ways against something that's going to be pretty popular. So as much as I said there wasn't any real wedge in the budget, I guess I should say there was no unexpected wedge, and certainly not one where the Conservatives could stand up on Budget Day and say, yes, I'm damn opposed to child care. But it creates weird tensions. And Alberta's an example, but it's not the only example, and the dynamics are different in each province, but

Corey 14:06

but always positive think about quebec like now the liberals get to say look at this great success in quebec that we now want to bring through the rest of canada that's going to play well in quebec will it not for once you don't have to worry too too much about how quebec's going to react to a federal program because you're basically modeling it after them so you can hand them the money and say yeah see that i mean it's it's

Corey 14:28

it's a miracle of confederation when you're not in a war with quebec over a spending matter and this gets them out of that particular challenge to take some of of the wind out of the sails of the Bloc Quebecois. It almost becomes a case of how federalism

Corey 14:38

federalism can work for the people of Quebec. You go to British Columbia, you think about some of the concerns there in the lower mainland, you think about the cost, you know, and affordability issues being there, helps significantly with those there. I mean, it's just, it's fascinating to me that as you start going through the battlegrounds, and even the non-battlegrounds, what

Corey 14:57

what a cool issue this could be for the liberals when they get into an election. So absolutely, it's where they should be putting their focus at this moment.

Zain 15:05

Carter, are you as hot on the focal point as Corey was here?

Carter 15:08

Yeah, I think that there's a couple of things. First of all, going back to your initial framing, sure, the recovery is probably a bigger component of the spending, but that's old news. That's old news. It's over a year old. And old news, it doesn't work. You can't release the same thing indefinitely. Now, I will note that Trudeau and every government ever announces things multiple times, but But you don't get the same impact. The impact that he got from bringing in a new program that was, as Corey has articulated, it has wins across the country in different ways and in different fashions, both political as well as the pragmatic benefit for the people who are actually impacted. This is a good news story that he gets to own and control. It was brought in by the first female finance minister to bring in the budget. Um, these, these were meaningful words at a meaningful time with symbolism all worked in. Uh, so from my point of view, that, that was a, that was a slam dunk and it was also the right emphasis. You, you, you have to put the emphasis on what people want to hear. Um, and this was a good piece that people wanted to hear. It's a very easy story because I, you know, we, we talked a lot about this in the last episode. What is the story and can I see myself in that story? story. Yes, it's an easy to understand story and virtually every Canadian can see themselves in that story. The impact of $10 a day daycare would be felt by every family across

Carter 16:40

across the country. I know it would have made a significant difference for our family. We didn't have it because we had Harper or we didn't have it because we had Kretchen. We didn't have it because we didn't have Trudeau. And if you can see yourself in that story, then the story becomes instantly more more powerful.

Zain 16:56

Corey, what's the risk of the child care announcement? Is there one in your mind? They clearly have to play ball with or the provinces have to play ball in some ways. But is there a risk inherently in here around this is a really long runway to actually get to $10 a day child care across the country? Or is there any other risk that you feel like could be politically damaging for the Trudeau government?

Corey 17:19

I mean, the risk, you've identified them there. The big risk is really this is not done yet and if you're going to be negotiating with the provinces bit by bit things can get a little weird in a hundred different ways part of again why i think this would have been a great budget to go straight to an election on rather than having six months of awkward negotiations and people pointing out challenges with this problem perhaps even constitutional challenges from the provinces depending on how these things line up although obviously you've got some precedent there with the with health and social transfers um the uh The other thing is, there are going to be people who do not necessarily benefit. But again, you

Corey 17:53

you can kind of paper those things over and hand wave it to negotiations until

Corey 17:57

the rubber hits the road. And all of a sudden, it becomes, okay, actually, my childcare is not aligned that way. I use a day home. This isn't going to help me. I just have a relative watch my kids overnight. This isn't going to help me. Maybe there should be some way it helps me. and that that's

Corey 18:13

that's going to be difficult for people as well because right now it's all in the land of pure possibility but this is going to be a big program and and it's kind of like again i'll point to health care when you think about the marvel of the fact that we

Corey 18:25

we collectively pool all of that risk we can have a kid in the NICU for two weeks and walk out without even signing a piece of paper it's like okay see you thanks for enjoying the health care system doesn't

Corey 18:35

doesn't mean we don't complain about it because the things that go wrong start to really get in our craw and we take for granted the things that go right. And the longer the program exists, I think the more you're going to have to deal with the things that go wrong. So that's one of the risks there. But because of the long lead times, I don't think that in practical terms, that's going to be too unmanageable because it's not as though these programs are going to be up and running coast to coast to coast before the next election comes along. Carter,

Zain 19:02

Carter, risk with childcare as a centerpiece, anything you want to add to Corey's comments?

Carter 19:06

think it was actually a pretty interesting play of jujitsu. I mean, where they put the risk really on the premiers themselves, right? I'm prepared to bring to you the money to do this thing if we choose to do it. You know, you're going to have to bring some money to the table as well. But the economic argument has been made. The discussion

Carter 19:23

discussion has been made. The impact on the individuals has been made. In fact, child care has been a discussion that we've been talking about for years and years and years, decades, really. And this is the first opportunity or not the first, but this is the second, I think, to my recollection, big push by a federal government to try and bring in a national daycare program. This one, by being diffused amongst the provinces, gives it a much larger chance of success, provided the premiers themselves approach it seriously.

Carter 19:56

things are going to fall apart. Things are going to get broken. Things aren't going to work. And that at this stage, Trudeau and the liberal government have

Carter 20:03

have made it so that when those those things don't work, when they don't happen, the people to blame are very, very clear. The person to blame is your premier, because

Carter 20:12

because the premiers are the ones who who who now hold, I think, the risk for the program and its design and its implementation. implementation uh so i

Carter 20:22

i think that it's uh it's a you know when when a bridge goes wrong when a bridge is funded by the provincial government the municipal government and the federal government um it's not the feds that get blamed it's not the province that gets blamed it's the municipal government it's the government that's implementing that always wears the risk of the implementation problems not the government that's funding so that puts the federal government in a much cleaner space so i think that they've played this very very well it's more likely to be implemented And it's more likely to have the blame land on their counterparts.

Corey 20:54

Corey, over to you. Well, to Carter's jujitsu point, O'Toole is accusing Trudeau of trying to reimagine the Canadian economy. Well, he can't do it without the premiers. And so it becomes a lot harder to suggest that this is some sort of wild, outrageous policy if all of a sudden you've got all of the provinces lining up to say, yeah, that sounds pretty good to me. It makes it seem an awful lot more in the mainstream. stream it's not as though there's an awful lot of liberal governments across this country right now in the provinces so so it really does kind of create this um this kind of band of brothers and uh unfortunately it's all brothers right now i don't think we have any female premiers right now but uh it uh it makes it less likely to be something that you can point to and say is just totally outrageous out there policy because it's rooted in requiring consensus to move forward So it also seems to – I don't think the intention was directly to rebut this charge by Aaron O'Toole, but we talked about this a few weeks ago. It's pretty clear what Aaron O'Toole is trying to frame this election out as. And the way Justin Trudeau brought in child care here or proposes to bring in child care makes that charge harder to stick, right? And that's not worth nothing either.

Zain 22:09

risks overall in this budget. What are the risks that the Trudeau government has? I'll get to Corey's point about should they have run an election on this? What do they need to do in the interim? But we talked about risk on the childcare side, the big sort of centerpiece. Risks overall, the deficit number, the spending, you know, what could go wrong for them as they introduce this with that six-month lag that if you're on Team Trudeau right now, you're trying to either de-risk or or try to ensure, frankly, doesn't happen to begin with? If you're in that room, helping the Prime Minister and Katie Telford and that team to say, here's the priorities of things, great job this week. Here's a priority of things that could go wrong that we need to have a real pulse on. What are they? Start us on that list, Carter, and then I'll go to Corey to add to that list.

Carter 22:57

I'm going to break it into two different risks. And they differ by timeline. So I'm going to go with the first risk being the electoral risk. And of course, we believe that to be be happening in the next six months um so

Carter 23:09

so that electoral risk is uh thanks for that what do i get now what are you promising me next right and so we ran into this in 2012 we put out a budget uh in 2012 they had all our little goodies in it we were all very proud of ourselves and then we ran into an election and

Zain 23:26

what was your delay between that budget and the election just so 15

Carter 23:29

15 seconds like it might have been it might have been 10 days like we hey budget let's go to an election and um maybe

Carter 23:36

maybe we went a little longer maybe we passed the budget anyways we we you know i think we passed it now i'm thinking about it but

Carter 23:42

but we went in and everybody was like great what's next what's next what's the next thing that i get because we already got that budget we got that stuff already we you guys pass i think we did pass it you guys passed the budget and now we want our next thing so that's the electoral risk the the the good news that is in the budget today becomes very quickly old news tomorrow. Six months from now, oh, child care? Yeah, we've been talking about child care forever. It's not that big a deal anymore.

Carter 24:10

We even got Jason Kenney buying into this idea. It's barely anything. So what are you going to give to me next? So I think that that's the big electoral risk from the budget, is

Carter 24:19

is that people become very, very quickly accustomed to that which they didn't have before. I think the second risk is actually the more dangerous risk, and that is that we are creating an opportunity for a structural deficit to appear at the federal level, where the expenditures, the planned expenditures for the federal government just simply far and away outstrip the federal revenues. We've been in a structural deficit in Alberta basically since 2007, because that's when we lost natural gas royalties. And once Once you're in a structural deficit, it is incredibly hard to get out of it without imagining some sort of a revenue change or significant expenditure change. And governments generally don't do very well with either of those things. Increasing expenses, super easy. Decreasing revenue, also super easy. But balancing the two just

Carter 25:15

just doesn't work. And so I think that there is a risk that this budget just sets us up for a structural deficit moving forward. Now, we could have an intellectual discussion about whether or not that matters or not. And that's always an interesting conversation. But I think that let's play the game as though it will matter to the Canadian population at some point. And I think that if that is the case, then this could very easily lead to a much more significant structural deficit than one that we've seen at the federal level for a long time.

Zain 25:50

Corey, you're joining Carter in that liberal war room after this week. You hear what Carter says. What other ideas or what other risks are you throwing onto the table? Carter's got two of them that he's thrown out electorally. Let's discuss that. We'll double click on that in a second. But also the structural deficit. Is there anything else you want to add?

Corey 26:11

think the big one is the first one. It's all about timing here. You can only

Corey 26:16

only spend all of the money in the world so many times, right? And this is so much money. It is all of the programs you've talked about, like CEWS and CERS and all of the acronyms, the alphabet soup that comes out of COVID-19, which itself is an acronym, it occurs to me. and it's also it's

Corey 26:35

it's also the green recovery it's the long-term care it's the child care which we've already talked about it's the big investments into the life sciences and

Corey 26:45

and you've kind of done them and yes they will be repackaged and yes they will be talked about and yes they will be pointed to but enough time passes and they're not new steven's absolutely right and i think that it makes me wonder what does the campaign look like if this is not the campaign and so that's where i I say, this

Corey 27:02

is too good of a budget not to run an election on. You've spent just so much money. How do you not run an election on it? Even the things that are the tax measures are such popular tax measures, like a luxury tax. That's a great idea. I wonder who came up

Corey 27:18

Oh, geez. Well, listen, it's been making the rounds for a while. But it's something that has been talked about in different jurisdictions for a lot of different reasons. But the biggest one is it doesn't hit most Canadians. And so it's kind of easy to accept and embrace. And in fact, it's like the liberal version of a wealth tax, isn't it? I mean, it doesn't go quite as – I'm blown away by how much money it apparently raises. It's really quite a popular little tax, and you don't normally see taxes being popular. So how do you – what's next? If this is not it, what's

Zain 27:52

what's next? Well, here's the question for you guys. First analyst mode, then strategist mode. Are they holding something back, you think? Or are we heading into an election? Conventional political wisdom would say one of those two things is going to bear itself out. Corey, what do you think?

Corey 28:08

Well, so here's the other thing about this budget that people have talked about in terms of what a slog it was. Reporters feel really hard done by it. It was 700 and some pages. But

Corey 28:17

it was 700 and some pages. It gave a lot of detail. It was very prescriptive about how this money is being spent. One of the things that this budget had, and I don't know if it was the first time or just the first time I noticed, but pages for each of these spending programs that gave a GBA plus analysis, or it wasn't called that, but that was a component of it as well, that effectively said these are the people who are going to benefit from the spending. These provinces, these demographics, women more than men in this case, men more than women in this case. And as a result of all of these sheets that kind of gave us that summary of who it benefits, you could basically learn a lot. Like there's not a lot of mysteries still to come in the budget as a result. I'm sure there are some. I'm sure there will be – there is money that's been identified as just like almost like not – Like plush fundy almost. Well, yeah. I mean that's kind of the negative way to look at it. Sure. It's probably the accurate way to look at it. But there's, I

Corey 29:12

I feel like green spending has not been articulated. But beyond that, it feels pretty articulated, doesn't it?

Zain 29:20

Carter, interesting. Carter, do you feel the same? Let's start there to Corey's question. I don't think it was rhetorical. So let's start there. Does it feel articulated to you? And then I'll jump into my question of, are we heading into an election, Carter? Or do you think there's more to come? I

Carter 29:34

think we're heading into an election. But I think that the the challenge for the Trudeau government is that this budget didn't align with the COVID schedule.

Carter 29:42

The COVID schedule has knocked the budget a little bit off track. And

Carter 29:47

And that's put put the election call on a different pathway than perhaps they would have wanted. Now, I suspect that if you, I mean, I'm really interested. At one point, we speculated when there could be an election, and we talked about Canada Day, you know, kind of as our third, you know, kind of, wouldn't it be fun to call an election on Canada Day? Now,

Zain 30:06

Now, I just want to make mention, you were also the guy who said, wouldn't it be amazing if Trudeau ran an election during the U.S. election in parallel? Just to let you know, I just want to let you know that Canada Day was one of the dates that that was another

Zain 30:18

day you had offered to the general public. Please go ahead, Carter. And

Carter 30:22

I think that I've largely walked away from that thinking, of course, we don't have summer elections. But what if we did something where, what if Trudeau did something where he called the election in the middle of August for early September? It really doesn't give you that much time to kind of move past what has come in, right? Realistically, the summer is going to be lost. We're not going to be talking a lot about politics during the summer. So why not call it a little bit earlier, get it out of the way instead of having to wait longer? I think that he

Carter 30:52

he can't call it while Ontario, B.C., Alberta and Quebec are on fire with COVID. But he certainly can think about different and creative ways to get himself to that election. I do feel like this is an election budget. And I do think that there's still I don't want to call it slush funds, but there are still funds to be allocated, especially around the recovery. In the back of my little head, it was about $100 billion that's in the budget, but less articulated. And I think, you know, it

Carter 31:24

it used to be that $100 billion was a lot of money. So you can do a lot of things with $100 billion. So I would think that if he's spending $100 billion and the pandemic is, I

Carter 31:37

don't know, I don't want to say over, but all

Carter 31:40

all but over, that

Carter 31:42

that $100 billion can go a long ways towards recovery.

Zain 31:46

Corey, you wanted to jump in here?

Corey 31:48

Yeah, I was going to say one of the things that's not in the budget, at least in any kind of large amount, and it was one of those things people thought might be, is infrastructure spending. spending there's there's not a lot of mention of infrastructure spending now there's two ways to read that one is the message that the government has largely bled out there which is well you know this is actually not a great time for infrastructure spending the cost of inputs is very high um this is not a

Corey 32:13

recession that has hit those sectors particularly badly that's some of the activity that's continued the other idea is maybe there's more to come on that front maybe maybe there are some big splashy spends that can come down the road because it's not as though governments are are always so wise with their infrastructure spending. They're always spending counter-cyclically. Like, often they will hold it back because it's of benefit during an election as well. So who knows? But, yeah, Carter's right. I mean, $100 billion is a lot. You start getting kind of this notion of, I

Corey 32:44

I don't know, you lose all perspective with a budget like this because there's just so much money floating around. But there is money for new initiatives. Obviously, there will be new initiatives during the election.

Corey 32:55

I'm fascinated what they'll be.

Zain 32:57

Well, here's where I want to play strategist mode for a second then, because this will sound a little stupid, maybe a little crazy, but could the $100 billion of spending been a weird trial balloon to see how people react? And if they're like, whatever, that's cool. That's a useful program. Could that give you the justification to perhaps spend more? Another $100 heading into, I'm just making that number up, but another big program that maybe you've held back and now you you feel like, damn it, the political will might be there to announce that on the run-up to the election. So, Carter, from strategist perspective, what would you perhaps advise the Trudeau government? And let's just assume a fall election. We don't know more than that. Let's assume the fall speculation is correct, or to your point, that announced in summer to fall. What do they need to have to ready themselves for that election as it relates to further promises?

Carter 33:53

Oh, I'd have a list of small things. A really long list of small things are all regionally important. Rather than going around with a shopping list, you know, like $100 billion is a lot of money, but it's one number. And

Carter 34:07

And one number doesn't resonate. What resonates is $350 million here, $250 million there. um, even,

Carter 34:15

even, even $10 million for a couple of things like, uh, $10 million to improve the princess Island park for festivals. So

Zain 34:23

you're not saying any other signature project. You're thinking small stuff to scaffold this big centerpiece, right? I'm

Carter 34:29

I'm such a big fan of small ball. Small ball is, is where things go, right? Like, uh, 2 million to $2 billion, uh, to improve recreation facilities. But instead of making it $2 billion to improve recreational facilities, You take that across the country, and you put $100 million into the province of Alberta for recreational facilities, but now it's not even the province of Alberta. It's going to be $20 million for Calgary, and you actually can point to the fields that they're going to change, or you're going to point to the arenas that they're going to build. That stuff matters to people. $100 billion is meaningless. It's just a big, big number that people can't understand. Pointing to projects that can be done for less, that kind of small money, small ball in my community is actually very, very valuable. So that would be my strategy is take that $100 billion, call it the local recovery fund, and put money into local recovery one step at a time.

Zain 35:30

Corey, you're in that same room. You're thinking about a speculative fall election. Are you agreeing with Stephen Carter's small ball, or are you saying, guys, this may give us a shot at something we never thought of, but maybe there's a chance for another signature or quasi-signature program to announce before the next election?

Corey 35:48

Well, Carter's suggestion of the local recovery program is interesting to me. I'm not as big a fan of small investments as Stephen, but I do like small investments that tell a bigger story and start to roll up. And it's not so much that you spent money in my neighborhood, but you spent it on child care, because you're investing in social infrastructure. Oh, yeah, this is the government that invests in social infrastructure. I think that has more value than just kind of, you know, putting putting a new parking lot in the curling rink, because I think the expectation over time has become, well, the next government's going to do stuff like that, too, who gives a shit, right? So it's investments that you think the other guys wouldn't necessarily make, is my belief is probably money that's better spent. in the purely crassly political context, not in the context of what's

Corey 36:33

good for the community. And so, but, you know, I want to caution here that

Corey 36:40

Justin Trudeau is not the only player on the field. And Aaron O'Toole is trying to write a story about Justin

Corey 36:45

Justin Trudeau as well. And part of that story is one of a little too cozy. The friends get the money. When you start having programs like that, it becomes a lot of very questionable, like there's just too many people out there. All of a sudden, if they look liberal connected, you've got a scandal on your hands, right? Similarly, if you were saying this guy is trying to reimagine the Canadian economy, if you see a bunch of programs out there, it's going to feel more like he's trying to reimagine the Canadian economy. And maybe if you're Trudeau, that's fine. Maybe you actually think that's a fine ballot question for you as well. But my point would be you

Corey 37:19

you can go too far with these things and you can walk into traps that your opponents set as well. So you've got to be mindful, not just about what

Corey 37:25

what you were trying to say about yourself, but also about what your opponents are trying to say about yourself.

Zain 37:31

Let's just, you know, we've done a tight 37 on this budget, Carter. I've got so many other things to cover. Yeah. This

Zain 37:37

This is what happens when we do Dairy Queen for an hour. I just want to let you know.

Zain 37:45

The backlog grows, my friend. Carter, final words of advice. let's say they bring you in for that uh this classic stephen carter 12-hour contract they bring you on off waivers what's the final thing you're leaving uh team trudeau with the katie telford's of the world the justin trudeau's that that that core team as they now are in in um you know obviously governance but election mode what's the headline piece of advice that you want to leave them with uh before you leave the room i

Carter 38:13

i i think it's probably just something simple simple like you only get one election budget per per site you know per government This is their election budget. So it feels to me like they have to go into the election. I wasn't a really big fan of the election strategy. I think, you know, it's two years into a mandate. It doesn't feel like it's necessarily the right time. But now you've written your election budget. So, you know, you could have done your election budget in year three. You know, you could have, you know, spent $300 million or $250 million this year, just getting us out of the recovery and then showing a big, you

Carter 38:47

you know, stepped down to only a hundred billion dollar deficit next year which included child care and a couple of these other things that we're discussing um but this is the one so you've you've done your election budget you better call your election because you don't get to do another election budget in year three or four this is it so let's go people forget the government's um you know they they respond to cycles and if you you don't just get to restart the cycle just because because you didn't call the election. So I'd say that you've, you've called your shot now implement. You got to make it work.

Zain 39:23

Corey, your parting message to that team.

Corey 39:28

Don't maybe, maybe you should go. I think that would be very similar to Carter. Maybe, maybe it's not such a crazy idea to go to the polls right now. Maybe you can orchestrate your own downfall. Maybe all you need to do is have Jagmeet Singh say something about how we We don't really support this government, but we'll vote for it. And you go and you say, not good enough. You know, you're making a mockery of the House of Commons. It's about the confidence of the House. It's not about votes. It's about the feeling that you have or you don't have. And this is coming up to works. Look at how committees are working right now. We want a mandate. And yeah, maybe you'll get beaten senseless for it. Maybe. But if we've seen anything from these COVID elections is you'd be the first, right? Right. Nobody

Corey 40:13

Nobody seems to be holding their government to account for calling an election during COVID. So why would they start now?

Zain 40:20

Interesting. I want to discuss that a little bit more as we as we move forward in the coming weeks. Let's move on to our next segment. Our next segment, Fridays are for taking out the trash. Saturdays are for bringing the trash back to your house. Then the week thereafter is for crying about the trash stinking up your house.

Zain 40:35

Let's talk about Doug

Zain 40:36

Doug Ford. I mean, this seems like once again, also eons ago, but just this past Thursday, Doug Ford apologized to Ontarians. He apologized on Thursday morning in a press conference days after his government faced intense backlash for introducing a number of additional COVID-19 restrictions that were not recommended by health experts. And then, of course, nixed that same weekend. Ford was isolating, another factor around this, around paid sick leave. So Ford himself was isolating at his late mother's house in Etobicoke after a staff member tested positive, said that he was very sorry. Simply put, we got it wrong. We made a mistake. These decisions, they left a lot of people really concerned. For that, I'm really sorry and apologize. apologized and then also added, I know we got it wrong. I know we made a mistake and we moved too fast. Stephen Carter, what did you make of the Doug Ford teary

Zain 41:34

teary-eyed apology? Was this what he needed to do? And how does this reconcile with the political wisdom of, you doubled down, man. What are you doing here? Why are you apologizing? Why are you backtracking? So both of those things, Initial thoughts, and then also, how do you reconcile the conventional political wisdom that we often talk about on this show relating to doubling down?

Carter 41:56

Yeah, I mean, I think that doubling down has a natural limitation. I mean, he was getting hammered, and on top of that, he was getting hammered justifiably so. I mean, he did go too far and into places where everything

Carter 42:10

everything was contradictory, and people didn't know what to expect. You want to be clear, right? When you're making a decision, when you're doubling down, you want clarity to be the order of the day. And Doug Ford didn't have clarity. Doug Ford instead had confusion and chaos, and people were responding exceptionally negatively. I like the apology. I think that apologies work in general. I came up during the Ralph Klein—he didn't cry. Ralph Klein never cried when he apologized. But he would often reverse course and say, I've listened to Martha and Henry. and this is what they're saying. And now we're going to go a different direction because that's the type of fellow that I am.

Carter 42:50

And I think that Doug Ford could be that type of leader where he says, you know what, I'm, I'm listening to the people that I serve. I'm going to be, you know, he is a populist as, as a populist, uh, you were supposed to do what the general population is, thinks is popular. Uh, that, that type of, of leadership, uh, strikes me as very much in the, in the wheelhouse of Doug Ford.

Carter 43:11

What bothered me about his statement of, of we've gone too far because

Carter 43:15

I just don't think that while

Carter 43:17

while this pandemic continues to rage in Ontario and Alberta, BC and Quebec, anybody's gone far enough to actually recognize the threat that we're under. This is a significant threat,

Carter 43:32

threat, and all Doug Ford really did was go too far on enforcement measures And not far enough on actually setting a tone for where we should be during this pandemic, which is in our homes, working from home, recording podcasts from home, and making sure that this spread is halted as best we can. So I think that the apology itself wasn't necessarily a bad thing. I do think what he was apologizing for was pretty tragic. He went too

Carter 44:07

too far on enforcement, not far enough on the actual rules.

Corey 44:11

Corey, do you agree with Carter's take?

Corey 44:14

It's a good summary at the end there. When he talks about he moved too fast, I think that's one of those lines that people have looked at and said, are you effing kidding me? Because one of the core criticisms of the government is they did not react quickly, and that's why they're in a third wave.

Corey 44:27

But from where he was, he's not wrong. They moved from zero to 100 and beyond, picking a number of initiatives that were not just stronger

Corey 44:37

stronger but new to Canada. People hadn't talked about doing them in Canada. The idea of police stopping you and saying, hey, are you where you should be? Are you doing things you're supposed to be doing?

Corey 44:48

I mean, that's part of what's crazy to me. He had so many almost

Corey 44:52

almost tried, tested, and true options, and he walked right the hell past them, and he went straight to police state. it's just kind of a very very weird thing to do and um and so yeah his i suspect his tears were somewhat real like he fucked up and and the fords are not too bad at admitting when they fucked up which is good because they do it a lot and so there's an opportunity though uh to reset now whether this is just one apology too far i don't know i guess i guess i leave that to the good people of ontario to judge but uh he needed to move past the week that was and this kind of reset allowed him to say the buck stops here it's also a situation where he himself was under quarantine so it allowed him maybe a certain amount of sympathy there was a bit of biting back on that too like look at you now you're under quarantine and you don't even know how to use a computer kind of stuff but um which

Corey 45:50

which i thought was unfair to the guy but it really allowed him to like

Corey 45:55

like let's put it this way this apology was

Corey 45:58

was better timed on thursday when he did it than it would have been on monday right you know he in some ways he did exactly what we recommended last week which is take

Corey 46:06

take a few days let things land figure

Corey 46:09

figure out what you're apologizing for which he did and then uh you know and now try try to build back better to use the Biden and Trudeau line here. You've got to find a better way forward from this path forward, because maybe

Corey 46:22

maybe this isn't a bridge too far, but one of these days it will be.

Corey 46:26

And you can't just keep doing the same thing wrong every

Zain 46:29

Carter, if you were in the position to advise Doug Ford, and you got some internals that said, God damn it, people think you're not showing emotion, you're not showing empathy. empathy would what you saw this past thursday have been in

Zain 46:45

in the neighborhood of the execution you would have liked to see from the setup to to the words to the clearly

Zain 46:53

clearly dramatic crying was that is that what you would have perhaps advised him or would you have taken a different route if the goal here was to show emotion empathy and let's be clear to apologize to to ontarians experience i

Carter 47:06

think i would have preferred anger um

Carter 47:09

um i i think i would have preferred anger and saying at whom at

Carter 47:12

at the people who aren't following the rules we

Carter 47:15

we tried to put in an enforcement program because people aren't following the rules and we're trying to curtail the spread and

Carter 47:21

and unfortunately what we created was something that went after the wrong people we

Carter 47:25

we went after after children in playgrounds and people who could easily be carded and subjected to uh to a random search. And that wasn't what we intended to do. What I intended to do was stop these fuckers who won't listen to the rules and who are just ignoring us and laughing in our faces. That's

Carter 47:41

That's what I wanted to do. And I made the wrong rules. But the intent was clear. Stop this pandemic where it is. That's what I would have preferred. I would have preferred anger over the tears. The crocodile tears for me didn't really work. I didn't feel it. But I am angry. And I'm I'm not sad. So again, I

Carter 48:02

I want someone who reflects how I'm feeling. I don't want someone who feels something different. I don't want to see something other than myself in my leaders. So if my leader is coming to me angry and I'm angry, great. If my leader is coming to me sad and I'm angry, we now have a disconnect. So if Ford had come back angry and said, I missed this, but here's the target that I was trying to hit. it i think i would have had a lot more confidence in the process but instead he comes in and he's sad and he's sorry well what are you sad for buddy you're sad because you've put in too many too restrictive a rule and you and we can't have barbecue or are you sad because um you know because they're stopping you you've empowered the police wrong in a wrong way like i'm sorry but the sadness for me didn't cut it i

Carter 48:52

i want people who are angry at the situation from the pandemic um not people who cry crocodile tears cory

Zain 49:00

cory would you what would you have done if you were in uh the metaphorical room with doug ford and you you've said okay we've decided on some sort of apology we know that you need to connect with people what would your instrument of choice have been um knowing doug ford from what you do from the public you know sort of perception of him

Corey 49:22

i think this is i i disagree with steven i don't think that anger was the right play there i think people would have said are you fucking kidding me now you're angry get the hell out of here um i i actually you

Corey 49:33

know what i'm torn about i am really torn about what was the appropriate path forward for him and i think he was choosing between bad options let's just let's just be really cynical and suggest that these tears were in somewhat you know like somebody made the decision be contrite and then he went and he was contrite and and tears came right um he

Corey 49:53

he he needed carter talks about wanting

Corey 49:58

wanting to be a have politicians as a mirror you

Corey 50:01

you don't need to break into tears to be feeling what doug ford was feeling there this frustration this sense of what the hell are we even supposed to be doing i think that's actually a pretty common feeling during covid am i doing Am I doing the right thing? Am I doing the wrong thing? Is this the best to do? Is there a better way to do? And I don't get a do over on these things. I mean, these play out in ways big and small all the way through our lives during COVID, right?

Corey 50:26

Should I be sending my kid to school? Should I take them out of school for this time? Should I be going to the grocery store? Is it stupid if I decide I'm going to, like, I'm going to feel really dumb if I go to Lowe's and I get COVID because I decided I needed some more lag bolts, right? Right. So I don't I don't know that it was that tonally off. And for that reason, I don't know it was a bad idea. I also think that, yeah, people feel anger, but that anger is fundamentally an anger of frustration, by and large. I mean, everyone's going to feel different. I'm not going to say that these feelings are universal. But and

Corey 50:56

and so for that reason, too, like I don't think the type of anger Carter's describing would be very mirroring. You know, I agree with his general comment. I disagree with his analysis of this particular situation. The

Zain 51:10

other thing Doug Ford promised here was paid sick leave, something that he's been, that the Ontario PCs had kind of voted down the NDP bill that was up

Corey 51:18

up for. So I

Corey 51:19

I didn't like that. Yeah, tell me about that. I didn't like that because on addition of tears, that felt way too much like the husband who fucks up and he's saying to his wife, I'm going to go to counseling or I'm going to be different, right? And like that, that was just so tonally different from who Doug Ford has been. Like his party, as you mentioned, voted against it. I didn't like that. I thought that was too far. Do you think it's the right policy? I absolutely

Zain 51:46

absolutely think it's the right

Corey 51:47

right policy. Make sure you're clear on

Corey 51:48

But it came across as I will say anything, anything in this moment to get you to love me again. Carter,

Zain 51:55

no real specifics from Doug Ford on what this paid sick leave policy will look like met with, of course, some relief and of course, some disappointment. Right thing to do wrong thing to do for Doug Ford.

Carter 52:06

Well, I think that Corey's right. I mean, it felt it felt like it was forced. You know, I'll buy you a diamond ring, honey. I'm sorry I cheated. That's that's It's definitely the feel of it.

Carter 52:17

But, you know, I mean, on the other hand, I think that Ontarians want the diamond ring. So they're going to take it. Does his caucus want it? Is this something that he thinks he can get through? And what's it going to look like when he gets through? Who's paying for the paid leave? I mean, these things, it

Carter 52:35

it felt like a shoot from the hip policy because he was in trouble, not because he thought it through.

Zain 52:41

Carter, will this work for Doug Ford? Final question on this segment.

Carter 52:45

this this does not work what works now is a sustained recovery um everybody

Zain 52:52

in a stop the bleeding let me ask that question sorry let me ask a more specific question does this stop the bleeding from that level of vitriol

Zain 53:01

vitriol that he was facing that on that friday press conference and then weekend backtrack it

Carter 53:07

it could be that's my question it could be the the bottom of the cavern but

Carter 53:11

but he has to make the decided effort to make that Because it's not just going to be that one speech. That could just be the end of his descent into the cavern. And now he has to start to try and find his way out. Because he's in a deep hole. And finding his way out is possible. But it's not going to take a couple of kind words and a few crocodile tears to get him there.

Zain 53:38

Corey, what do you think? Does this stop the bleeding in that sense? Does this work for Doug Ford?

Corey 53:45

It doesn't stop the bleeding. Does it make the bleeding less?

Corey 53:49

less? Maybe. This is not going to be the kind of thing that you can get over with one event, in particular because you have so many different audiences you're trying to manage in so many different ways. You've got a caucus who is going to be feeling one thing. You've got a public who's going to be feeling another thing. And with all of these constituencies at play, one speech – there is no speech good enough to deal with the challenges that you have with all of the various constituencies that are worked up in various ways right now. That's a simple reality. But it wasn't a bad start. It's not enough. It's going to take a little more work still. But he certainly looks in a more stable position today than he did when we had this conversation seven days ago. I'm

Zain 54:32

I'm going to leave that segment there. Moving on to our next segment, a quick Alberta drive-by. I should call it a quick Alberta drive-through because, you know, Dairy Queen related. You're welcome. Very good. You are welcome. Guys,

Zain 54:42

Guys, there's so much going on in Alberta. We could talk about COVID. We could talk about Kenny. But I want to talk about one thing which might actually encompass all of that, which is that first quarter fundraising numbers are out and the Alberta NDP have more than doubled the UCP and Q1 fundraising according to elections Alberta numbers that were released. released late last week. Corey Hogan, how big of a deal is this?

Corey 55:07

Well, I think it's a pretty big deal. The conventional

Corey 55:10

conventional wisdom has always been for many, many years, and it's changing in a hurry. And when you look at the United States, you can see it sort of seesaws back and forth, who's the money leader. But the conventional wisdom for a long time has been that right-wing political parties have a natural fundraising edge, You know, their economic message appeals to wealthier Albertans or the types of people who get riled up by these situations are more likely to be in the conservative camp. And so the idea that the NDP could not just out-fundraise the conservatives, the UCP, but double them, but lap them, I mean, that's really significant. And it's really significant for a number of different reasons. First of all, obviously money helps you win elections. Let's just call the obvious one right there. Second, and that's part of why we're talking about it right now, the optics of it are – they're dramatic. It doesn't look like, yeah, they're

Corey 56:05

they're kind of close. Let's put it this way. The UCP is closer to raising as much money as the Alberta party, a third party with no seats in our legislature, than they are to raising the amount of money that the NDP had, right? I mean, that's really pretty damning when you're the governing party. And the other thing, and let's call this 2A, the last time this happened last year, the UCP sort of brushed it off as, well, we're the government. We weren't fundraising during COVID. We were focused on different things. So no big deal, the NDP.

Corey 56:41

buying it anymore, right? Like at this point, that's pretty difficult to continue to use those lines. So the kind of the excuses for it are like they're not going to land as well with the party, which leads me into kind of point three, which is if you are a political party as large as the UCP, if you have a caucus as large as the UCP and you've got as much discontent kind of bubbling out there as the UCP does, according to reporting, this

Corey 57:05

this is really not going to help, right? This is going to reinforce a lot of the narratives of Albertans are turning against us. We've got to turn this around. What the hell is happening? They're voting with their wallets right now, which is something the UCP was always happy to say when they were the fundraising leaders against the NDP. But now the shoe is on the other foot.

Zain 57:23

Stephen Carter, the NDP raised $1.186 million from January to March, while the UCP raised $521,000, more than double for the NDP. Corey talks about this voting with the wallets. There's also several other items going on here. If we talk about indicators paralleling this with the UCP, there's obviously these letters within constituency associations trying to collect signatures to get Jason Kenney to resign. How troubling is this if you're Jason Kenney? Is this just another proof point or is this a particularly bad proof point when you're the UCP? This

Carter 57:58

This is really bad. This is a big proof point. And this wasn't known when we started to see the leadership review problems, right?

Carter 58:07

So the first leadership review was about a month ago. And then there's now another letter circulating, demanding that he resign, just straight up resign, forget about a leadership review. view um and the

Carter 58:22

the the money for the cas because this is the cas and the party together right like it's both of them together so you've got more sitting mlas and your more sitting mlas aren't able to raise as much money as the mlas and the ndp party like or ndp not allowed to say ndp party i made a mistake um that is that is a a significant uh disadvantage for the ucp but even more more significant is the way that they raised their money, right? So if you

Carter 58:54

you start taking off the table the way that the UCP raised their money, the anti-government kind of, we got to return the anti-carbon tax thing, right? All the different initiatives that they had taken advantage of over the last five years to try and raise their money so that they had a war chest that could battle against the evil socialists. Each one of those is coming off the table, right?

Carter 59:19

the the ucp isn't following through on their promises you know the the the elimination of the carbon tax didn't do anything for jobs there are no new jobs nothing is happening and people uh in the are voting as they as they are want to do um with their wallets and they are pulling their money and support away from the ucp um what's under underneath all of this though underneath all of this is eroding relationships uh and the erosion of the relationships with the between the ucp and their most important class the donor class is significant and i don't know that it can be repaired by jason kenney himself cory

Corey 1:00:05

in my experience donor dissatisfaction it can certainly jump all the way to i'm not donating but you quite often see it goes two stages well i'm

Corey 1:00:13

i'm not very happy with the central party so i'm going to donate locally and then i'm not going to donate at all is is the next step right and i guess one of the things that will be interesting to watch here over the next bit is uh whether there is a bit of a of a shift towards donating to the local party if if the ucp dissatisfaction continues any further here another thing to point out there's a couple of other interesting elements that we need to throw on the board here. One is that third parties were basically non-existent.

Corey 1:00:44

You know, it's the NDP

Corey 1:00:47

way ahead of the UCP, as we mentioned, and then the UCP way ahead of a bunch of parties that raised, you know, $20,000, $30,000 a piece. Yeah, $43,000 for

Corey 1:00:57

the Alberta party and $32,000 for the Alberta Liberals. So, you

Zain 1:01:00

you know, a fraction. Yeah,

Corey 1:01:01

mean, we're talking just in a totally different ballpark here and um and so this is also a bit of a proof point that we really are landing into a heads-up election here maybe there will be people who are pulling a vote one way or the other maybe on the quote-unquote left you'll have a liberal party take a few percent of the vote from the ndp maybe on the quote-unquote right you'll have the western independence party take a few votes from the ucp but by and large it looks like there's two battleships that are going to be out there just just knocking each other around and that that's an interesting thing to consider as we move into an election historically people have said that's not great for the ndp i'm not sure that's the case anymore i i've not really been sure that's the case for a while um because in 2015 the number of people who voted left and voted right if you want to aggregate we're about even and of course the ndp have been leading in the polls for seven months at this point but to sort of see that like that that has a consideration for the election to come and then the other thing is this is the party money but we do need to sort of note that there is a fair bit of dark money floating out there in third party advertising which could still affect these things in interesting ways that we've yet to see cory

Zain 1:02:16

i'm going to stick with you for a second carter i'm coming to you with the same question right after i asked cory cory give me your best best UCP issues management line for why we got lapped? Not just lost, not just came in second, why we got lapped in fundraising. What would the skeleton framework of the UCP messaging be in your mind if you're communicating to the public as to why we got hit

Corey 1:02:42

Our leader is working day in, day out in the legislature, in the halls of government to keep Albertans safe. And it's not surprising that in an environment like that, where the opposition leader can go around to fundraisers, can work phone calls, can try to work Albertans up and scare them, you know, a threat to public health, but to the benefit of their coffers. It's not surprising in that environment that the NDP would be successful in fundraising. But at the end of the day, Albertans know the UCP have their back, which is why we expect these fundraising numbers will turn around once we're out of this moment. And we can have an honest conversation about these things. And our leader can be out there talking to Albertans in a way that we know resonates with them.

Zain 1:03:22

Carter, supplement Corey's statement here, your issues manager number two in the Premier's office. What are you saying to add to why we got lapped?

Carter 1:03:32

We took our eye off the ball. We've been working so hard for Albertans, we just took our eye off the ball. And we're

Carter 1:03:38

we're going to come back to fundraising once we've solved this particular problem. I'm quite confident that the fundraising will come back

Carter 1:03:47

back because our people want what we're doing, which is rebuilding Alberta and making Alberta a better place.

Zain 1:03:53

Stephen Carter, you just heard that the UCP say that they took their eye off the ball. What are you going to say if you're the NDP in return?

Carter 1:04:00

There's nothing more important than reaching out to Albertans and understanding what they want and what they need. You can't ever take your eye off the ball with the general population of alberta so what the fuck ucp we're the ones listening to what albertans want and we got 1.2 million reasons we're right right back in our bank account bitches uh

Zain 1:04:21

uh carter the ndp just said that the only thing that matters is connecting with the people now how would you respond i'm totally joking i'm not gonna make you have a conversation by yourself the remainder of the podcast which would be a lot of fun cory let's talk about uh the the ndp for a second what would What would you be telling them? What would you be telling them right now in terms of advice related to this current situation? Is it something that we've... Maybe the theme here is victory laps. Do they take a victory lap on this? Does money beget money? Or do they need to be a bit humble, a bit quiet? Like, what would your tone and strategic sort of positioning for them be right now? Because seven straight, you know, seven months of polling in first place, now lapping in fundraising, do they want to be out ahead? Or are you kind of tempering them a bit? What sort of advice are you giving them right now?

Corey 1:05:14

Well, I think that there is a lot of reason why you want to be the fundraising leader and want to point to that fundraising strength. And most of it ties to that third party conversation. If there is kind of a risk

Corey 1:05:25

risk to a return to not lead government right now, and it's two years out, there's lots of risks. But one of the risks is that somebody says, well, neither of these parties is doing it for me. So I'm going to go and try to build another party. But by showing that you're

Corey 1:05:39

you're in poll position and as long as nobody Fs this up, then this government will be changed. That's going to be very appealing to a certain section of Albertans. That said, you don't want to give the sense that you have so much money. You're like, you know, that Brandon Stevens, the NDP provincial secretary is like Scrooge McDuck, just swimming around and it just happened. old time uh so it's yeah it's good it's money uh it tells us an awful lot about the fact that albertans are frustrated with this government they are they're letting us know that through their spending here but don't kid yourself they control the government that gives them a huge communications advantage don't kid yourself they have all of their friends with with dark money that's going to be flooding into this election just look at last election when all of the used used car dealerships pooled together to push against the NDP, they're in the lead, even if it looks like they're halfway behind us, because they have access to all of this money. Perhaps you go so far as even to say somewhat unscrupulous money. And we've got to be three times as good as them to be in the game with them. And you've got to create that sense of, you know, sweat on the back of people's necks. Like, that's great. We're at 1.2 million. It's great that only 600,000 came came in, you know, relatively, we're doing fine in that sense. But this isn't just about Albertans. This is about all of the levers they feel totally comfortable pulling that they shouldn't pull. Corey, would you characterize that as embracing an underdog status?

Corey 1:07:07

It's the cliche of like you're five votes behind. But I think in fundraising, you've got to give the sense that it's not enough. Always. Yes, we have this money, but it's not enough. So you are trying to give two messages at the same time. One is kind of the, there's really only one game in town message, but the other one is, but it's still not enough. We need more. This is not going to be enough to do it because it's tough to unseat a government, especially a government that's willing to use the power of government. Carter, finish us

Zain 1:07:36

us off here. What advice would you be giving to the NDP as they soak

Zain 1:07:42

soak in their fundraising numbers?

Carter 1:07:44

Don't take it for granted.

Carter 1:07:46

You've raised it now. Now you've got to keep raising it quarter after quarter after quarter. You're only halfway through this game. So with another eight quarters to go before there's another election, you have to gather as much money as possible. And I would maybe stop fighting the UCP and start fighting special interests. There are 32 political third-party advertisers in Alberta. Those have unlimited amounts of money that can be flowed into them them from corporations and other interests that are against the NDP.

Carter 1:08:20

Who knows how much money is going to flow in that we're going to have to be fighting against in the next election. So don't worry about where the UCP is. Worry about where we think we need to be.

Carter 1:08:30

And the NDP also needs to start spending their money wisely. I see them doing a great job in fundraising. I'm not sure I see them doing a great job in organizing.

Zain 1:08:41

I'm going to leave that segment there. Moving on to to our final segment, our over, under, and our lightning round. Stephen Carter, I always ask you, are you ready? Not today, Zane.

Carter 1:08:49

Zane. I am not ready to go.

Carter 1:08:50

Thank you for checking in.

Zain 1:08:52

Wonderful. We're still going to start with you. It doesn't matter. Overrated or underrated? This last set of NDP quarterly fundraising numbers. So I'm not asking you in general. I'm asking you about this particular set, overrated or underrated? I

Carter 1:09:04

I think probably overrated. One quarter in the middle of a pandemic is a great measuring point, but it is not necessarily the trend that the NDP needs to see over the next two years.

Zain 1:09:18

Corey, overrated or underrated this particular set of fundraising numbers? I

Corey 1:09:22

I think it's rated just right. You've got the political class talking, and for good reason. This is a pretty significant development.

Zain 1:09:30

Corey, A to F, give me a grade on this federal budget.

Zain 1:09:36

83%. Wonderful. Carter, A to F, give me a grade on this federal budget.

Carter 1:09:41

I'm going to say that it's a B+, because I accidentally forgot which scale you asked. Yeah,

Zain 1:09:47

Yeah, I was just going to say, thank you. Thank you, Carter. Jesus Christ. Carter, they say the messenger

Zain 1:09:53

messenger and the message are the same. We heard Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Krista Freeland deliver this budget in the House of Commons. Give me a letter grade on her performance that you saw earlier this past week on A to F.

Carter 1:10:08

Well, I think I have to continue, even though I fucked up. So I'd say she was a B plus as well, because now I'm just going to have to start answering your questions and the whole premise of the show is fucked.

Zain 1:10:17

Did you like her focal point on feminist economics, where she said this is feminist economics and ultimately kind of doubled down on that? You'd mentioned this in the past. I wanted to loop back around on that particular point. I didn't get to ask earlier. I

Carter 1:10:30

I did. I feel like she, I think

Carter 1:10:34

think she serves as an icon for women

Carter 1:10:38

women and young, especially young women, of where they can see themselves and what they can see themselves achieving. And she's a lot less polarizing. She's not not polarizing, but she's less polarizing than, say, a Hillary Clinton has been in the past. So, I think that her delivery was good and people saw themselves in the person delivering the speech, which is really, you know, why does the finance minister wear a buffed up pair of shoes? They want to, you know, show themselves, you know, like, I

Carter 1:11:10

I am showing myself, I'm putting my best foot forward for you, for Canada.

Zain 1:11:15

Corey, what are you giving letter grade wise to Christopher Freeland's performance this past Monday on 8F?

Corey 1:11:20

I'd give it a very good for sure. Sure. I think that there's not much to critique about it. And it was well delivered. And certainly there was an awful lot of social media activity, pictures of her walking to give the budget, pictures of her giving the budget, you know, the importance of the moment did not go unnoticed.

Zain 1:11:39

Corey, Erin O'Toole called this a not a recovery budget, but an election budget and a poor one at that. That seems to be the main headline that people are walking away from, from Erin O'Toole's response give me a letter great for aaron o'toole uh is his response to this federal budget a

Corey 1:11:57

well he's right it is an election budget but i don't think it's a poor one i think that it's not like he was going to say damn and it's a pretty good one shit what are we going to do now yeah um yeah i i think his response was pretty pretty lackluster but you know actually i let me let me give a little more nuance on that he

Corey 1:12:15

he didn't give much of a response which was probably the the right response in the face of a good budget like you don't want to be fighting too hard against the budget so you just sort of point to a few things that you've got critical challenges with obviously the deficit was always going to be part of his conversation and uh and you live to fight another day aaron o'toole used the budget for what he wanted to use it for which was to stomp out his own green plan right he released that on what a thursday and then the budget came out the next week and i think he was probably hoping for more red ink his messaging certainly Certainly looked as though they had written it ahead of time. And that was in reaction to Reading that wasn't ultimately there to the same level. Carter,

Zain 1:12:53

Carter, what's your letter grade on Aaron O'Toole for his response to the federal budget?

Carter 1:12:59

Not great, Zane. I think that, you know, his response was entirely forgettable. I would have rather seen him say something along the lines of, you know, we're in a tough spot now. Now, Trudeau

Carter 1:13:11

Trudeau has just put himself in a great place because it's really easy to campaign for election when you're buying votes with taxpayer money. And never before have votes been purchased with so much taxpayer money. I'm offended on behalf of all taxpayers that people think that this is the way that they can run an election. But I know that people will think that this is the only way that they can get these benefits. But I'll tell you, a conservative government will restore the economy and give us the financial benefits. without having to pay this enormous price.

Zain 1:13:43

Corey, I want to spend some time on this next question on Thursday, but I do want to get a bit of a headline from you. Joe Biden is nearing his first 100 days in office. He'll do that later this week. On a scale of 1 to 100, how

Zain 1:13:59

how has Joe Biden's first, I'd say nearly 100 days, been in office for you?

Corey 1:14:07

know, in some ways, 100, and in some ways, 40. But, you know, there's a real possibility at this point that Joe Biden is one of the transformational presidents. If he pulls off some of what he has announced, you know, his climate targets are unreal ambitious. The idea that he wants to remake the global tax system, the idea that he would double the capital gains tax, his massive infrastructure program, which includes all of these investments in social infrastructure as well.

Corey 1:14:38

We haven't seen anything like this in our lifetimes, any of our lifetimes, and Carter's old as shit. This is a

Corey 1:14:45

a type of liberal president that people threatened Joe Biden would be.

Corey 1:14:52

Who knew? I mean, it's kind of cool. Now, on some of the other stuff, he has been a bit of a disappointment on refugees. We saw he had a big reversal on that. There are still people in cages at the border. I struggle to see – he is so ambitious economically, but socially he has not quite gotten – maybe

Corey 1:15:14

maybe socially is not even the right word. On a humanitarian level, he is just not level. He's not measured up, but on every other measurement, he's kind of gone way farther than I think the progressive wing of the Democrats' best case scenario was.

Zain 1:15:29

Carter, I'm going to spend more time on this on Thursday, but give us a headline on a 1 to 100 scale. Joe Biden's first nearly 100 days in office. I

Carter 1:15:36

I think you've got to grade him on three different levels. I think that on the economic and the green front, you've got to give him 100. I think on the social stuff, like even the legalization of marijuana and decriminalization of it or whatever front they wanted to go on, he's been very regressive and not moving very quickly at all. And you continue to see large segments of the population incarcerated

Carter 1:15:58

incarcerated as a result.

Carter 1:16:01

you get to the foreign affairs world, where I think that he's actually close to a zero. His positioning with Putin has been weak. He's not taking particularly strong positions on what is

Carter 1:16:12

is a world gone crazy, whether it's China or Russia or hotspots like Syria. Everything is very, very challenging right now. And I just don't see the

Carter 1:16:26

the international relations plan of the United States returning the United States to the position of world dominance anytime soon.

Zain 1:16:35

stephen carter the peanut buster parfait overrated underrated it's

Carter 1:16:39

it's underrated uh unless you've got a you know peanut allergy in which case whoo stay away from that fucker cory

Zain 1:16:46

cory overrated under i'm doing one of these treats every week now just what i've decided i'm just going through the list overrated underrated the peanut buster parfait i

Carter 1:16:55

don't know if i've ever had what we gotta go tonight man let's go jesus

Zain 1:16:59

jesus christ we're gonna leave it there that's a wrap on episode 934 four of the strategists. My name is Zane Velgey. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan, and we'll see you next time.

Transcript